LADDER BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH
White Germans went on to kill Jews, Armenians, artists, homosexuals, and anyone who violated the cultural norms of middle class whites or disagreed with the Nazi methods. What is next for Americans if the far right wing of the GOP stays in power?
While Hitler was a true believer of his own toxic political philosophy, I think that Trump is simply using the presidency to fill his empty coffers. I believe that Trump is leading his followers into a cruel future, not because he wants to help us reach some kind of ideal, but because he needs the money. He is using his power to fill the government with people who are dedicated to making the rich even richer, removing all obstacles to the wealthy being able to amass even more money than they already have. Along the way, his businesses and the businesses of his relatives, are being flooded with foreign cash.
I suspect that Trump refused to publish his tax returns because he was broke - at least his version of being broke. He gave government positions and offices in the White House to his relatives who manage his business interests. Since becoming president, money from foreign governments especially, has come pouring even harder into the Trump businesses, including his daughter Ivanka's business, which, just this week, received another 7 special trademarks with China - within days of Trump's announcement that he intended to save China's ZTE Corporation, a sudden reversal of his "policy" that no new foreign contracts would be allowed during his presidency.
Ignoring my suspicions about this venal motive of his, which can only be inferred at this point, I am concerned that a large percentage of Americans are being manipulated with tried and true techniques used by authoritarian figures throughout history. They are being turned and formed on the lathe of hate and ignorance. They have given themselves over to it willingly because Trump, a typical authoritarian figure, either promises them relief from responsibility for the bleak condition of their lives or gives them reassurance that their country will not be overrun with brown people. The authoritarian figure capitalizes upon the mob's fears. He sacrifices the immigrant, the poor person, the black person, in a social lynching.
"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me,
you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil
and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no
food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger
and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me
no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me."
Matthew 25
Many of Trump's supporters are white evangelicals, according to recent news articles and statistics. These supporters of the far right ignore the continual and insistent message of the Bible to love one's neighbor as much as oneself. The Bible is full of references to helping the poor and the stranger. Trump supporters imagine that it is acceptable to support the destruction of all our vulnerable populations and to turn away the refugee under a supposedly "pro life" and "pro family" banner. It boggles the mind.
"Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and
her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless
ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they
were haughty and committed abominations before me.
Therefore, I removed them when I saw it."
Zek. 16:49
I wonder what kind of family they have in mind, when I listen to trump brag about grabbing women "by the p...y" and then, later, denying he had actually done it when 19 women complain about being assaulted by him. He called them liars and impugned their character, as if being groped by Donald Trump was something anyone would want known about them. There is no advantage in it. It is nothing but humiliation.
"Stormy Daniels"
The affair with the porn star, how he tried to cover it up, lied about it, lied about the payment, got caught lying, then had to fess up, does not sound like family values to me. His attorney, Rudy Giuliani, paints a picture of a man who regularly needs his affairs to be cleaned up in this manner and who feeds money into a slush fund for this purpose. Trump's wife, Melania, was pregnant and then had just given birth to their child when Trump was having sex with the porn star, risking the health of wife and baby. What kind of family values is that?
"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has
faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and no food
for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace,
keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give them the
necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith
of itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
James 2:14-17
I am not being obtuse. I am well aware that the only criteria for "pro family" in the minds of evangelicals is often nothing more than making abortion illegal while at the same time starving the hungry. Abortion is not going to become illegal in America until America experiences severe trauma as a result of not having enough young people working to support the society.
Trump has made some movements in the direction of making abortions more difficult to get, but they are not permanent. As soon as he leaves office, all of that will be overturned. People will have to stop killing their babies of their own accord. Men like Donald Trump would have to stop having affairs that need to be hidden, for one thing.
It is a mystery to me why evangelicals have sold themselves so cheaply, with so little to gain, and so much to lose. Associating Donald Trump with the topic of abortion automatically denigrates the position of the pro-life movement with the majority of the voting public.
Donald Trump - the choice of white evangelicals
It isn't just the evangelicals. Just yesterday, a priest blabbed some far right propaganda onto Facebook that supposedly most of our refugees are Muslim and that he believes they should not be "given welfare," (i.e., helped to survive) because they come from Muslim countries and they're old enough to be in the Army. This convoluted, logic-strained rationalization based on a false narrative is what passes for compassion in his world, apparently. He is sucking up all the admiration of his flock, enjoying the status of being a priest, and gut-punching Jesus at the same time. Hypocrites like this make me want to scream and tear my hair out.
Jesus told us that going to heaven when we die is not a sure thing. He said that many people would come to him, in the end, and beseech him, saying, "Lord! Lord!" and He would tell them to get away from him and that he does not know them. Getting baptised, donating to the church and appearing now and then are not going to get us through the pearly gates.
This topic reminds me of an icon that I look at quite frequently. It is the ladder to heaven. All along the ladder, people are falling off and falling into the pit of hell, where Satan's demons await them.
God help me, but the address of Jared Kushner's beleaguered property on 5th street is 666. I'm just saying.
The people of the land have practiced oppression and committed
robbery, and they have wronged the poor and needy and have
oppressed the sojourner without justice...Thus, I have poured out
My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of
My wrath; their way I have brought upon their heads,: declares the
Lord GOD.
Ezek. 22:29,31
Silver Rose Parnell
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